JP3105269B2 - Data output method - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a data output method suitable for printing the contents of merge data on a form having a predetermined form.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, outputting data in a predetermined format by computer processing has been widely performed. For example, outputting desired data to a display device such as a CRT in a predetermined format and displaying it is routinely performed in various fields, and a predetermined data is output based on information collected by various methods. In some cases, data is created, printed on a form having a predetermined form, and mailed as personal mail. Examples of the latter include, for example, a notice of maturity of time deposits, a notice of details of deposit and withdrawal, a notice of insurance, a notice of details of payment by credit, and the like performed by banks, life insurance companies, and the like. In the following description, printing on a form and a personal mail system will be described as an example. However, the form of “data output” in this specification is not limited to printing on a form, and a CRT may also be used.
There are various modes such as output to a display device.

[0003]

By the way, in order to print predetermined data on a form, three types of printing elements, that is, data to be printed, a medium to be printed, and print processing means are required. The data to be printed is the data to be printed itself and a file containing the data. The medium to be printed is a pre-printed form (hereinafter simply referred to as a form) on which a predetermined form is printed in advance. This is a printing program that can be executed by a control device such as a microcomputer and the like, and each data is printed at a designated position on a form according to the processing described in the program. Form printing is performed by these three types of printing elements being organically related to each other. The conventional form printing has been performed mainly by print processing means (hereinafter referred to as printing). The printing process centered on the processing means is referred to as a program-driven printing process), so that the following problem has occurred. That is, for example, taking a bank as an example, as described above, the customer is notified of the expiration of the time deposit, the notification of details of deposits and withdrawals, the notification of payment / balance of loans, the notification of details of payment by credit, and the like. May be mailed as personal mail, and mailing these notifications one by one increases the cost, so the mails are mailed together. Then, a printing program for a specific notification is created and set in a printing system, and then a magnetic tape (hereinafter referred to as MT) or a magnetic disk (hereinafter referred to as MT) on which data to be printed to be printed by the printing program is written. (Hereinafter referred to as MD) in the printing system, set the form for printing, and execute the printing program. Therefore, a process of printing data on a form is required. When a plurality of notices are to be mailed together, a print program corresponding to each notice is created in advance, and a form corresponding to one notice is prepared. When printing is completed, it is necessary to repeat a process of setting and printing a printing program, data to be printed, and a form corresponding to the next notification, which requires a great deal of trouble. The above matter will be described below with reference to the conceptual diagram of the program-driven printing process in FIG. Now, A,
Assuming that the three types of notices B and C are mailed together,
First, a printing program 10 for each notification of A, B, C
1, 102 and 103 are created and set in the printing system 100. Next, in order to print the first notification, for example, notification A, MT1 in which data for notification A is written.
04 and the form 107 for the notification A
Set to. As shown in FIG. 6, the name of the individual who is the target of the notification A and data on the notification A of the individual are written in the MT 104. The same applies to the MTs 105 and 106. Then, the printing program 101 is started to perform printing. As a result, a form for each individual written in the MT 104 is created. When the printing of the form for the notification A is completed, the MT 104 is removed and the MT 105 is set in the printing system 100 in order to print the form for the notification B, and the form for the notification B is removed except for the remaining form 107 for the notification A. Is set, and printing is performed. When the printing of the form for the notification B is completed, the printing of the notification C is performed in a similar manner.

In this manner, three types of forms are printed. After the printing is completed, these forms are set in, for example, an enclosing and sealing device (not shown), and the forms for the same person are matched and collated. Then, it is sealed in a predetermined envelope, and a series of processes is completed. In the above description, the data for each notification is separately written in the MT, but it is also possible to use name identification data. Here, the name identification data refers to data collected cross-sectionally for characteristic items from the information on each subject. For example, the name identification data for banks is, as shown in FIG. Various transactions such as deposits, checking deposits, time deposits, reserve deposits, mortgages, student loans, and the like are taken as subjects, and transaction information carried out by each business partner is collectively formed for each business partner. However, as described above, in the conventional program-driven printing process, since only one form can be printed at a time, even if it has name identification data, the data of the transaction destination for each transaction is summarized from the name identification data. 6 must be created. In any case, when a plurality of forms are combined and personal mail is performed, first, the forms to be mailed are printed one by one and then each destination is printed. In addition to having to perform the task of collating the information, not only is it extremely time-consuming, but also the situation has occurred in which the data of other business partners is mailed by mistake.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a data output method capable of efficiently outputting desired data from merge data. Another object of the present invention is to provide a system capable of efficiently performing personal mailing.

[0006]

The above-mentioned conventional problem results from the fact that data is output mainly from a printing program. In view of the above, the present invention solves the above-described problem by adopting a form-driven output process that performs output processing centering on a form and a data-driven output process that performs output processing centering on name identification data.

[0007] The form-driven output process includes name identification data,
And when there is a print program group for printing the data of each subject of the name identification data on the specified form, by setting the form to be printed in the printing system,
The control means detects a recognition code of a form, automatically selects a print program corresponding to the form from a group of print programs, and outputs the corresponding data in the name identification data to the form. Initiative-type output processing means that when there is a print program group that prints data of each subject of the name identification data and the name identification data in a predetermined format, the control unit causes the subject included in each item of the name identification data to be processed. This is a process of detecting, selecting a corresponding printing program from a printing program group, executing the printing program one after another, and outputting data to a form.

Therefore, the first data output method according to the present invention comprises a name identification data, a print program module group,
With a plurality of types of preform forms, the type of the form is detected, and a print program module for printing on the provided form is selected from the print program module group and merged, and the merged print is performed. It is characterized in that predetermined data in the merge data is printed based on the program module. Further, a second data output method of the present invention includes name identification data, a printing program module group, and a plurality of types of preform forms,
Recognize the subject of the linked data, and print the data of the subject from the print program module group only when a form corresponding to the recognized subject is provided in the plurality of preform forms. And merging the selected print program modules, and printing predetermined data in the merge data based on the merged print program modules.

A first personal mail system according to the present invention comprises name identification data, a print program module group, and a plurality of types of preform forms, and detects the type of the form to detect the type of the form program module. , Selecting and merging a printing program module for printing on a provided form, printing predetermined data in the merge data based on the merged printing program module, processing, enclosing and sealing. Features. Further, a second personal mail system of the present invention includes name identification data, a print program module group, and a plurality of types of preform forms, recognizes a subject of the name identification data, and generates a form corresponding to the recognized subject. Only when provided in the plurality of preform forms, a print program module for printing the data of the subject is selected from the print program module group and merged, and the merged print is performed. It is characterized by printing, processing, enclosing and sealing predetermined data in the name identification data based on the program module.

[0010]

According to the conventional method based on a printing program, only one form can be printed at a time, and it is necessary to create a printing program every time predetermined data is printed on the form. On the other hand, according to the present invention, since data output processing is performed mainly on a form or data, a printing program for printing data of each item in the name identification data is stored in a file as a module and necessary for printing. Since only a simple print program module is read and merged, there is no need to create a print program every time printing is performed on a form. Further, in the present invention, there is no need to apply any processing to the name identification data, so that it can be used very efficiently as it is, and it is not necessary to replace MT each time one form is printed as in the related art. , Can save time and effort. Further, since the data of the predetermined item in the merge data is printed continuously, the collation error as conventionally occurred does not occur.

[0011]

An embodiment will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment in which a data output method based on a form-driven output process according to the present invention is applied to a personal mail system.
Denotes a processing device, 3 denotes a sealing and sealing device, 4 denotes a control device, 5 denotes an input device, 6 denotes a name identification data file, and 7 denotes a printing program file. The printer 1 prints predetermined data on a form, and is constituted by an impact printer or a non-impact printer. It is assumed that the printer 1 has a function of reading a code printed on a form. The processing device 2 includes a folding machine for folding printed forms in a predetermined manner, a collating machine for sorting a plurality of produced forms for each mailing destination, a stapler for binding collated forms, and the like. Have been. Known folding machines, collating machines, and staplers can be used, and their operations will be described later. The enclosing and sealing device 3 is a device that seals a form processed in a predetermined mode by the processing device 2 into an envelope for each mailing destination, and a known device can be used. The control device 4 is composed of a personal computer or the like, and controls the operation of each unit of the personal mail system. The operation will be described later. The input device 5 is for instructing a desired operation to the control device 4 or for inputting parameters and the like for desired processing, and is composed of well-known input means such as a keyboard, a magnetic card reader, and an IC card reader. The name identification data file 6 is a database having the above-described structure. In the following description, the name identification data file 6 is assumed to be data relating to bank transactions as shown in FIG. In the print program file 7, a print program for printing the data of the subjects included in the name identification data on a form is written in a modularized form for each subject. Assuming that data is to be printed, the printing program file 7 includes a printing program module for printing data of ordinary deposits, a printing program module for printing data of checking accounts, and a printing program module for printing data of time deposits. Prints the data of each subject, such as a printing program module, a printing program module for printing savings deposit data, a printing program module for printing mortgage loan data, a printing program module for printing student loan data, etc. Print program module for writing To have.

A form as a print medium is set in the printer 1. The form used in the present invention is a preform form similar to that conventionally used, that is, a form in which a predetermined format is printed on a sheet of paper or continuous paper. Multiple types of forms are set. For example, assuming that the printer 1 is provided with four paper feed trays, each paper feed tray has FIGS.
As shown in C and D, forms 10 ₁ , 10 ₂ , 10 ₃ and 10 ₄ on which different formats are printed are set. The form in which the form is set is arbitrary, but can be selected according to, for example, a mailing plan. That is,
In this mailing, A, B,
Assuming that notifications are provided for four types of subjects C and D, a form having a format corresponding to these subjects may be set in each paper feed tray of the printer 1.

After the form is set in the printer 1, when the start of printing is instructed from the input device 5, the control device 4
First, what kind of form is set in the printer 1 is detected. As means for that, there are the following two methods. The first method is a method of receiving and detecting a set state of a form in each paper feed tray from the printer 1, and this is performed by adopting a method similar to paper size detection in an image recording apparatus such as a copying machine. be able to. At this time, it is natural that the control device 4 needs to be provided with a file in which the relationship between the state of the paper feed tray and the form type is written in advance. The second method is a method in which the operator detects by inputting which form is set on which paper tray on the input device 5.

When detecting the type of the form, the control device 4
From the printing program file 7, a printing program module required for printing data on these forms is read out and merged to generate a printing program. For example, the printer 1 is now described by the first method.
Form A in the first tray, form B in the second tray,
If it is detected that the C form is set on the third tray and the D form is set on the fourth tray, the control device 4 prints a print program module for printing on the A form and a print program module on the B form. A printing program module for performing printing on a C form and a printing program module for printing on a D form are read from the printing program file 7 and merged to generate a printing program.

When the type of form is detected by the second method, the type of form set in which sheet tray is directly instructed from the input device 5. Reference numeral 4 reads out a print program module based on the instructed information and performs a merge process to generate a print program.

When the generation of the print program is completed as described above, the control device 4 reads out data from each item of the name identification data file 6 and outputs only the subject data corresponding to the form set in the printer 1 to the printer 1. And instructs the form to be fed and printed. For example, the control device 4 causes the printer 1 to print an A form for printing the a-subject data, a B form for printing the b-subject data, a C form for printing the c-subject data, and a d-subject in the printer 1. Recognizes that four types of forms, D-forms, for printing data are set, and the item (customer in this case) to be read is a,
Assuming that the control device 4 has data of five types of subjects b, c, d, and e, the control device 4 first reads the data of the subject a, instructs the printer 1 to feed the form, and sends the subject a The data is transferred and printed. Similarly, the data of the subjects b, c, and d are printed. On the other hand, since the control device 4 recognizes that the report corresponding to the subject e is not set for the subject e, the control device 4 ignores the subject e and reads the data of the next item. Hereinafter, the same processing is repeated. As described above, printing is performed only for the subject corresponding to the form set in the printer 1.

In the above description, a plurality of forms are printed by one printer. However, each form differs in thickness, type of paper used, etc. in addition to the size. In addition to the paper form, multiple related forms are bound,
There is also a special form such as a so-called copy form that can be copied to a form bound below by printing on the first form. Therefore, the printer 1 may be provided with two types, an impact printer for printing on a copy form and the like, and a non-impact printer for printing on a sheet form, for example, a laser beam printer.

The form is conveyed in the printer 1 and
When performing printing, it is necessary to change the settings of the printer 1 according to the difference in the form paper. For example, in an impact printer, it may be necessary to control the printing pressure according to the paper thickness, etc., in a thermal printer, it may be necessary to control the scanning temperature. In some cases, it is necessary to control the gap between the transport rollers according to the smoothness of the surface of the sheet. In order to perform such control, the printer 1 directly recognizes the information on the form paper and automatically performs the control, or the control device 4 directly recognizes the information on the form paper and transmits the control contents to the printer 1. , And any of these methods may be adopted. As a method of recognizing the information on the paper of the form, when the former method is adopted, the form 10 can be recognized as indicated by FM in FIG. 2B.
Various information about the paper, such as size, paper thickness, paper type, etc., may be pre-printed in the predetermined area ₂ and read by a printer, and the latter method is adopted. In this case, there is a method of inputting various types of information regarding the paper of each form from the input device 5 in advance, or a method of storing information regarding the paper in a print program module and causing the control device 4 to recognize the information.

The form printed as described above is then conveyed to the processing device 2, where it is folded and collated as required in a predetermined manner.

The folding is as follows. The manner of folding is determined from the size of the envelope to be used and the size of the form, and it is necessary to control the folding machine in accordance with that. The following method is used to give control information to the folding machine. There is such a method. The first is a method of causing the folding machine to directly recognize the form of folding of the form. In the same manner as the information on the sheet described above, the form of folding of the form is printed in a predetermined area of the form. Is read by a folding machine, and the state of each part of the folding machine is automatically set. Second, the size of the envelope is input in advance to the folder, and the mark FM in FIG. 2B is read by the folder. The folder is read from the relationship between the envelope size and the form size written on the mark FM. This is a method of automatically determining the folding mode. Third, there is a method in which information relating to paper is stored in the print program module, and the control device 4 determines the folding mode based on the size information therein. Fourth, there is a method in which information on the folding mode is stored in the print program module in addition to the information on the sheet, and the control apparatus 4 recognizes the folding mode based on the information.

In the above description, various types of folding are performed by a single folding machine. However, the setting state of each part of the folding machine requires fine adjustment according to the paper thickness, weight, strength of the paper, and the like. There are cases. In that case, a plurality of folding machines may be arranged, and adjustment of each folding machine may be performed according to the form to be folded. In that case, the printed form needs to be transported to a folding machine adjusted for the form, which can be performed by the control device 4. In other words, since the control device 4 recognizes what form the printed form is, the form can be conveyed to a folding machine adjusted according to the form. Since a folding machine that folds a sheet at the timing of folding as instructed is well known, details of the mechanism are omitted.

The collation is as follows. The collating machine collects the forms for each mailing destination, but it is possible to collate from which form to which form by collating the collating machine from the control device 4. That is,
Since the control device 4 knows how many forms are printed for each item, by instructing the folding machine on the number of forms for each item, the forms conveyed in the printing order are caught. Can fit together.

As another method, the printer 1
3A, the start mark SM is provided at a predetermined position of the first form of the item as shown in FIG. 3A, and the end mark EM is provided at a predetermined position of the last form as shown in FIG. 3B. Is printed and read by a collating machine to collate from the form on which the start mark SM is printed to the form on which the end mark EM is printed. Alternatively, as shown in FIG. In this method, the identification number ID of the item is printed by the printer 1 at the position indicated by the reference numeral, read by a collating machine, and a form printed with the same identification number ID is collected and collated. In this case, when the collating machine is arranged at the latter stage of the folding machine, it is necessary to prevent the start mark SM, the end mark EM or the identification number ID from being hidden by folding. It is. Since a well-known collating machine can be used, the details of the mechanism will be omitted.

A stapler can be arranged in the processing device 2 as needed, and a stapler or the like for binding a collated form can be arranged. In the case of using the stapler, the position and the number of bindings can be determined by printing information on the binding method in a predetermined area of the form in advance, as described above. You can also instruct from.

The form that has been subjected to the predetermined processing by the processing device 2 is then conveyed to the enclosing and sealing device 3 where it is enclosed in a predetermined envelope and sealed. Since a known device can be used as the enclosing / sealing device 3, the details thereof are omitted. The data output method based on the form-driven output process has been described above.

Next, as a second embodiment, a data output system based on data driven output processing will be described. The configuration of the data output method by the data-driven output process is the same as that shown in FIG. 1, but the method of generating the print program is different. That is, the control device 4 stores the name identification data file 6
, The data for each item is read out. If the read-out subject is a subject to be printed, a print program module for printing the data of the subject is read from the print program file 7 and merged. is there.

The details are as follows. Now, a plurality of types of forms are set in the printer 1, and the control device 4 reads the data of the first item from the name identification data file 6 and recognizes the first item in the data. If it is determined that the form corresponding to the subject is not set in the paper feed tray and it is determined that the form is not to be printed, it is ignored, but it is recognized that the form is set and printed. If it is determined to be
A print program for printing the data of the subject is read from the print program file 7 and merged to create a print program. Then, while instructing the printer 1 to feed a form corresponding to the subject, data to be printed is sent and printed. Similar processing is performed for the second and subsequent subjects. When the printing of the first item is completed, the control device 4 reads out the data of the second item, and if there is a subject that is to be printed and is not included in the first item, Then, the process of reading a print program for printing the data of the subject from the print program file 7 and merging the same is repeated.

As described above, the data-driven output process recognizes the subject of the name identification data and merges the print program modules to generate a print program only when the subject is to be printed. Is a data output method. The determination as to whether or not the read subject is to be printed may be made based on the set form or may be made according to an instruction from the input device 5. That is, if only the form to be mailed in this project is set in the paper feed tray of the printer 1, the former method can be adopted, and the control device 4 determines that the form corresponding to the read subject is The merge process of the print program module is performed by determining whether or not the print program module is set.

A plurality of types of forms are set in the printer 1. However, when printing is to be performed not on all the set forms but on only some of the forms, the latter type is set. A method is adopted, and information on a subject to be printed is input from the input device 5. Therefore, the control device 4 performs the merge process of the print program module by determining whether the read subject is the designated subject.

Subsequent processes of printing, processing, enclosing and sealing are performed in the same manner as described in the first embodiment.

Although the embodiments of the present invention have been described above, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various modifications are possible. For example, it is clear that various subjects can be considered as subjects of the name identification data, and various processing machines other than the above-described folding machine, collating machine, and stepper can be used as the processing device. The control can be performed by the same method as described above.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a form set in a printer.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining collation control using a start mark and an end mark.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining collation control using a recognition form;

FIG. 5 is a conceptual diagram for explaining a conventional personal mail system.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a data structure used in a conventional personal mail system.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a structure of name identification data.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Printer, 2 ... Processing device, 3 ... Enclosure and sealing device, 4 ...
Control device, 5: input device, 6: name data file,
7 ... Print program file

Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Ichiro Hinata 7 Enokicho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Inside Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (56) References JP-A-55-52180 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int .Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G06F 19/00 B42D 15/08 G06F 3/12

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] The present invention comprises a name identification data, a print program module group, and a plurality of types of preform forms, and detects the type of the form and prints from the print program module group on the provided form. A data output method, wherein a print program module is selected and merged, and predetermined data in the merge data is printed based on the merged print program module. 2. A system according to claim 1, further comprising: name identification data, a printing program module group, and a plurality of types of preform forms, wherein a form of the name identification data is recognized, and a form corresponding to the recognized subject is provided by the plurality of preform forms. Only in the case where the print program module is provided, a print program module for printing the data of the subject is selected from the print program module group and merged, and the merge data is created based on the merged print program module. A data output method characterized by printing predetermined data inside. 3. A system according to claim 1, further comprising: name identification data, a printing program module group, and a plurality of types of preform forms, for detecting the type of the form and printing from the printing program module group on the provided form. A personal mail system wherein a print program module is selected and merged, and predetermined data in the merge data is printed, processed, and sealed based on the merged print program module. 4. A system comprising a name identification data, a printing program module group, and a plurality of types of preform forms, recognizing a subject of the name identification data, and forming a form corresponding to the recognized subject into the plurality of preform forms. Only when provided in the print program module group, a print program module for printing the data of the subject is selected from the print program module group and merged, and based on the merged print program module, A personal mail system characterized by printing, processing, enclosing and sealing the predetermined data.